Wellness Center sees one more pick up game of basketball

November 30, 2018 

Christopher Lomahquahu

Gila River Indian News

Before the lights go out at one building in the Gila River Indian Community, there was still a bit of business to settle on the hardwood. 

At the Gila River Wellness Center, members of the Executive Office staff and Community departments played  a pick-up game of basketball on Nov. 30. 

The Wellness Center’s swan song  featured the on-court action, but in a friendly way as ballers old and new dribbled, passed and shot for a little bit of nostalgia. 

The gymnasium has served more than its fair share of basketball games, schools plays and even a few scares during the annual Trail of Doom Halloween event. 

“There’s a bit of history here,” said Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis, “I grew up here, I think of all of [us] did.”

Lewis said the game of basketball is indicative of the sought-after fun-filled atmosphere Community looked forward to both during school and in the evenings when for a time, it was the Community’s only indoor gymnasium. 

Past school board member Willardene Pratt Lewis, said, “The Community got the funding to build [this] big building, so the school could have a gym and a space for the Community to use it in the evening.”

Willardene said during her tenure on the school board, she and her colleagues had the foresight to build a place for the Community.